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Sunday, January 18, 2009

A bit of historical perspective from Frances Rice, a lawyer, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She can be contacted at: www.NBRA.info

Democrats Smeared Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960's

Character assignation. That's the tactic used by Democrats in the 1960's to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican who was fighting the Democrats and trying to stop them from denying civil rights to blacks.

The relentless disparagement of Dr. King by Democrats led to his being physically assaulted and ultimately to his tragic death. In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Prior to his death, Democrats bombed Dr. King's home several times. The scurrilous efforts by the Democrats to harm Dr. King included spreading rumors that he was a Communist and accusing him of being a womanizer and a plagiarist.

An egregious act against Dr. King occurred on October 10, 1963. With the approval of Democrat President John F. Kennedy, Democrat Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy – President Kennedy's brother – authorized the wiretapping of Dr. King's telephone by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Wiretaps were placed by the FBI on the telephones in Dr. King's home and office. The FBI also bugged Dr. King's hotel rooms when he traveled around the country.

The trigger for this unsavory wiretapping was apparently Dr. Kings' criticism of the Kennedy Administration, according to the author David Garrow in his book, "Bearing the Cross". The justification given by the Kennedy Administration publicly was that two of Dr. King's associates, including David Levinson, had ended their association with the Communist Party in order to work undercover and influence Dr. King. However, after years of continuous and extensive wiretapping, the FBI found no direct links of Dr. King to the Communist Party.

The unrelenting efforts by Democrats to tarnish Dr. King's reputation continued for years after his death. To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the Democrats' smear campaign and made Dr. King's Birthday a holiday.

Today, while professing to revere Dr. King, Democrats are still trying to tarnish his image by making remarks that diminish his civil rights achievements and continuing to claim that Dr. King embraced Communism – a system that is secularist and socialist.

In reality, Dr. King was a Christian who held deeply religious beliefs and was guided by his faith and his Republican Party principles in his struggle to gain equality for blacks. He did not embrace the type of socialist, secularist agenda that is promoted by the Democrat Party today, which includes fostering dependency on welfare that breaks up families, supporting same-sex marriage and banning God from the public square.

An understanding of who the real Dr. King was can be gained from a glimpse of Dr. King as a young man who participated in an oratorical contest when he was 14 years old. The title of his speech was "The Negro and the Constitution" which had the following sentences: "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance…We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flout the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule…."

If Dr. King were still alive, he would be slandered by Democrats in the same way that they smeared him in the 1960's and demean all black Republicans today.

That's an interesting piece, that appears to forget the role that J. Edgar Hoover played as well as the fact that the main part of the turn around against King happened after Kennedy was assassinated and Dr. King spoke out against the Vietnam War.

Hoover was the one who stated that King was “the most notorious liar in the country.”

I think it would be more accurate to state there were Democrats and Republicans that were involved in character assignation as well as those who believed in all of what Dr. King promoted, including that the Vietnam war was wrong.

OMG! I never knew Dr King was a Republican! I was never taught that in any school I have attended (UT grad '95)! While it does not change his message or the meaning of it, it certainly changes, or should change the way the people he represented should view him. The facts surrounding his life and the attacks he endured from democrats just has me wondering how African-Americans can support that party without question?

I don't know Dr. King's party affiliation. Several of his family members insist he was a Republican while others say he voted for Democrats. I've voted for some Democrats in the past, but that doesn't mean I've changed my party affiliation. I know that the National Black Republican Association maintains that he was a Republican and have cited the statements of family members on their website.

What I do know is that much of the history of the parties regarding civil rights is not known by most people.

The Republican Party was started by a group of individuals staunchly opposed to slavery.

Few know that the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery passed Congress with the support of 100% of Republican members but with only 23% of the Democrat members.

Or that when the 14th and 15th Amendments extending civil rights and voting rights to African Americans passed, not even one Democrat in Congress voted for those amendments.

Or that, after they took control of Congress in 1892, Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil rights legislation passed by the Republicans, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875.

Personally, I blame the GOP for not making sure that people know - or remember - these things.

Today, Republicans are blamed because they oppose programs that keep people dependent upon government. I had a friend, who is also an African American, tell me one time that he thinks Blacks traded slavery to a plantation owner for slavery to the government. I'm sure we could have an interesting discussion around that statement...

From Lisa Renee:I think it would be more accurate to state there were Democrats and Republicans that were involved in character assignation

Oh, yes. Obviously. I mean, we can't be blaming the Democrats for 'obstructing' Dr. King's efforts to promote civil rights and equality. The Democrats are liable to develop some kind of complex about a poor self-image and blame shifting. Or something. Alright, they'll feel bad about themselves, and we can't have that! It's wrong.

From 2Bn11FA:OMG! I never knew Dr King was a Republican! I was never taught that in any school

You bet you weren't. School teachers belong to labor unions, and labor unions vote the Moonbat ticket.

Very, very few people know the history of slavery with regard to the political parties. Given the results of the last presidential election I don't expect that this history will be taught in public school anytime soon. Unless history gets revised a little, that is, and the names are changed to protect the innocent.